vovat | I Told You I'd Come Back, and Here I Am

We didn't do anything Halloween-related this past weekend aside from watching a movie, but we did see two Monkees shows, part of their Farewell Tour, in Atlantic City on Saturday and Manhattan on Sunday. They were largely the same, except the first show was quite a bit shorter. Casino shows are usually shorter, probably in hopes that people will gamble afterwards, even though I don't think they're any cheaper. Casinos are always pretty difficult to navigate, which makes me a little uncomfortable. Is it easier to find the exit if you can assure them you don't have any money? Beth's mom and cousin Marji went to the first one with us, but it was just Beth and me in our party for the second. Both shows had signs saying photography wasn't allowed, but neither of them really looked like they were enforcing that. Still, I mostly avoided taking pictures, aside from two blurry ones in Manhattan. The casino said they would be checking vaccination cards, but they didn't, and didn't require masks either. Mike Nesmith just sang and didn't play guitar (or anything else), while Micky Dolenz just played some simple percussion in addition to singing. At the second show, after intermission, Micky sang "Porpoise Song" and Mike "While I Cry," each without the other. While it was largely just one song after another, along with a few pretty standard bits of banter, they did discuss a few of them a bit. Mike talked about how someone who worked on the TV show wrote "The Door Into Summer" based on a Robert Heinlein story, which none of the Monkees had read (at least at the time). He also explained that "Tapioca Tundra" was one he started writing after a show in Hawaii, based on how it didn't really feel like it was him on stage, and how creative work ends up belonging more to the audience than the creator. That's a pretty surreal song, so I found even that bit of insight into the meaning interesting.